Subject:Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:ChuckyGon10/28/08 at 9:25 pm

I was just listening to my wife's copy of the soundtrack album with headphones... and I swear in the first ten seconds it sounds like something is in there backwards with a low volume. Anyone ever hear of this before? Maybe I'm just imagining it, but I certainly wasn't looking/anticipating anything in the start of the song.

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Foo Baron10/28/08 at 10:36 pm

I was just listening to my wife's copy of the soundtrack album with headphones... and I swear in the first ten seconds it sounds like something is in there backwards with a low volume. Anyone ever hear of this before? Maybe I'm just imagining it, but I certainly wasn't looking/anticipating anything in the start of the song.

Maybe. It's definitely not a voice, but the sound effect's attack/decay curve does vaugely resemble a cymbal crash played/sampled backwards. (Maybe it's played twice and delayed/phased by about a tenth of a second in one channel relative to the other?)

And it was Kenny Loggins, and a listen to Vox Humana will reveal he wasn't above sampling sound effects (or even his own voice) and using a keyboard to play back the samples as instruments.

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:whistledogon10/28/08 at 10:42 pm

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but something similar happens with alot of cassette tapes. If you listen real close to the beginning of a song on some cassette tapes, you can distantly hear the other side of the tape playing in reverse, or sometimes you can faintly hear the song itself before the song actually starts. This has always creeped me out BIG time

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:whistledogon10/28/08 at 11:34 pm

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but something similar happens with alot of cassette tapes. If you listen real close to the beginning of a song on some cassette tapes, you can distantly hear the other side of the tape playing in reverse, or sometimes you can faintly hear the song itself before the song actually starts. This has always creeped me out BIG time

Forgot to mention that I've also had this happen on some vinyl and CD albums as well: faintly hearing an advanced echo of the the song in the background as the song starts playing

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:ChuckyGon10/29/08 at 12:25 pm

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but something similar happens with alot of cassette tapes. If you listen real close to the beginning of a song on some cassette tapes, you can distantly hear the other side of the tape playing in reverse, or sometimes you can faintly hear the song itself before the song actually starts. This has always creeped me out BIG time

8-tracks would totally weird you out then, they were notorious for poor tracking. Columbia records used to have a lot of fade-in noise too.

This thing though is on a CD, and it's at least five or six seconds in.

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:midniteon10/29/08 at 6:25 pm

Yes, I think the recording says "Beware of Kevin Bacon. He is only six degrees away from Satan."

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:whistledogon10/30/08 at 12:17 am

In those first ten seconds, you can hear Loggins shouting in the background saying indistinct words. Reminds me of 'All I Need is A Miracle' by Mike + the Mechanics where at the beginning of the song, Paul Carrack can be heard shouting indistinctly

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Midason10/30/08 at 9:53 am

Yes, I think the recording says "Beware of Kevin Bacon. He is only six degrees away from Satan."

;D

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Philip Enoon10/30/08 at 10:01 am

In those first ten seconds, you can hear Loggins shouting in the background saying indistinct words. Reminds me of 'All I Need is A Miracle' by Mike + the Mechanics where at the beginning of the song, Paul Carrack can be heard shouting indistinctlyMany other singers, sing indistinctly!

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Joe Zazaon04/18/11 at 8:18 pm

He's just singing a little poem... I searched on Google for the lyrics to it, but I can't find them. I think he's saying something like, "Working so hard for free, BUT I don't… blah blah blah, I blah blah"

I can't figure it out and it's driving me crazy! Maybe what I have already is wrong, maybe not! I'm bald, but if I wasn't I'd rip my hair out all over again!

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Foo Baron04/18/11 at 10:42 pm

I was just listening to my wife's copy of the soundtrack album with headphones... and I swear in the first ten seconds it sounds like something is in there backwards with a low volume. Anyone ever hear of this before? Maybe I'm just imagining it, but I certainly wasn't looking/anticipating anything in the start of the song.

There's two different versions of the track. I believe they're both available on this Footloose 12"

version 1: 3:42 long, starts with silence, then a "whoosh" effect, then some guitars, and the percussion doesn't start until 0:10. No vocals to speak of in the intro. version 2: 3:46 long, starts with a drumbeat, and this is the version where the mysterious vocals are heard.

I think Joe Zaza's pretty close to what I heard on the second version of the track. The singers are the background vocalists who sing the "yo-ho-ho"s at around 2:30ish in either version.

(And now I'm off to dig up the 8:48 remix of I'm Alright, and if I had any talent, to try and mash it up with Vox Humana, but since I don't have talent, I'll just listen to 'em and call it a night, why don'tcha just let me be :)

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Joe Zazaon04/18/11 at 11:53 pm

There's two different versions of the track. I believe they're both available on this Footloose 12"

version 1: 3:42 long, starts with silence, then a "whoosh" effect, then some guitars, and the percussion doesn't start until 0:10. No vocals to speak of in the intro. version 2: 3:46 long, starts with a drumbeat, and this is the version where the mysterious vocals are heard.

I think Joe Zaza's pretty close to what I heard on the second version of the track. The singers are the background vocalists who sing the "yo-ho-ho"s at around 2:30ish in either version.

(And now I'm off to dig up the 8:48 remix of I'm Alright, and if I had any talent, to try and mash it up with Vox Humana, but since I don't have talent, I'll just listen to 'em and call it a night, why don'tcha just let me be :)Thanks for the props, dude… but I just tweeted the man himself and he says it's just gibberish:

http://twitter.com/#!/kennyloggins/status/60164593351278593

I wanted to ask him "Are you sure?" but some other chick did before I could and he hasn't replied to her yet:

http://twitter.com/#!/joycem25/status/60164893327888385

Maybe he didn't because it was a stupid question—? Don't know, though… if you're right and one of the background vocalists sang it, then the mystery may remain. But it's hard to believe that Kenny wouldn't be involved with every level of the song's production, so I just might consider this mystery solved. Just wish I could get him to elaborate beyond a fudgeing Twitter "tweet" so I can have some real closure. =/ Does anyone on this forum have a sound mixer that can drown out the background noise? O_O Shot in the dark, but it yield something. =p

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Joe Zazaon04/19/11 at 12:10 am

Sorry for the screwed-up links and the typo at the end. (I meant to say, "It COULD yield something.") I also didn't know this forum had a curse-bot. I meant to say "fu¢king Twitter"—thank you very much. ;)

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:Foo Baron04/21/11 at 9:37 pm

:-X Sorry for spamming the thread, but this will be my last post until somebody comes up with a better theory:

"Working so hard for free—yet, I don't got no bills—I'm nowhere."

Well, it's gonna be pretty hard to argue against Kenny himself. Having relistened to it, it sounds like him (with a little processing like in the "yo-oh-ohs" at around 2:30) as opposed to a background singer. And it wouldn't be the only time - it's not like the intro to Vox Humana is anything other than a fun way of showing what could be done with a little technology, while still being a rock track.

Subject:Re: Is there something recorded backwards at the beginning of Footloose?

Written By:MaxwellSmarton04/22/11 at 12:19 am

If you play it backwards, it says "Satan is the Devil"!http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/03/devilsmile.gif